


playing with fire

by thinksideways



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: Ann's POV, F/F, Kissing, Lots of kissing, it's hard to write fic when the show is a fic unto itself, ~warm and tender feelings~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinksideways/pseuds/thinksideways
Summary: Ann had gone 29 years not particularly thinking about kissing, but now, it’s all she can think about.(basically episodes 2 & 3, from Ann's POV)





	playing with fire

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】玩火 playing with fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19161286) by [R_H_Felidae_Athena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_H_Felidae_Athena/pseuds/R_H_Felidae_Athena)



> Lots of dialogue taken straight from the show, because I cannot improve upon perfection.
> 
> Also this show has me completely dead 3 episodes in, so that's cool.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” Miss Lister - _Anne_ , she’d said to call her _Anne_ \- asks, and Ann can feel the woman’s gaze on her, heavy. The weight of it crushes her chest, and there’s a feeling - a queer mix of warmth and weight - inside her, just below her stomach.

Words don’t come, at first, and when she’s finally able to speak her voice is soft.

“No,” she says, and has to look away from that penetrating gaze, though she can still feel the weight of it.

(She has the worst urge to fidget, under that stare, and when she shifts, her thighs tight against one another, the feeling in her stomach flares suddenly, like a matchhead laid to tinder.)

Anne speaks again, quiet - _perhaps you wouldn’t tell me if you had_ \- and Ann’s head pivots back toward her, emboldened.

“Have you?” she asks, and she doesn’t quite know what answer she wishes to hear in reply, doesn’t know where they’re going, with these questions; but she knows that she doesn’t want this moment to slip from her grasp.

“I asked you,” Anne replies, and _oh_ , Ann’s flustered again, laughing and awkward, quite unable to look directly at her.

“Good lord, how did we get onto that?”

“Well, have you never wanted to?”

A loaded question, that. There have been men who tried (though none lately), but she’d never felt much regret at denying them, turning her cheek and slipping away. They’d been heavy-handed and clumsy, she’d mostly just felt boredom and a vague sort of disgust.

(There’d been a maid, though, who’d done Ann’s hair in the most clever of ways - she’d never tried anything of the sort with her, naturally, but Ann had found herself warming under the feel of the woman’s fingers in her hair, brushing against her neck, a tangled, odd feeling she had not named as desire.)

Again, she takes too long to answer, the words darting from her like minnows in a river, and her lips move soundlessly before she stumbles upon what seems like an appropriate answer.

“Only to see what it was like,” she says, and looks at Anne again. Her eyes are questioning, perhaps dubious - had Ann answered wrong? - and then Anne exhales softly, replies in a whisper.

“Who?”

Rather than answer, Ann turns the question around.

“Have you?”

“Wanted to?” Anne’s voice is soft, and the rasping quality of it makes Ann’s heart thud,  “yes.”

“Well, who? When?”

“Every time I come here.”

It is not the answer Ann expects (is it? she has begun to wonder), and she stammers again, terribly aware of their proximity, how Anne’s eyes have not left her, the low pitch of her voice.

“What do you mean?”

Anne shifts, and she is closer now, as close as the men who’d tried to kiss her, but Ann thinks that, in this instance, she would not turn away. Anne’s hand lifts, and touches her cheek, the thumb brushing across her lips, and Ann is overwhelmed with the urge to take the hand, kiss it.

“Surely you know what I mean,” Anne says, the fingers trailing down, tracing her jawline before withdrawing, “and I think you feel the same way about me.”

“What?” Ann replies, and her voice is choked, made weak with the wanting that a single thumb across her lips had stirred.

(A lie - she was  _stirred_ before them. The touch has only reinforced it.)

“I think you’re a little bit in love with me,” breathes Anne.

“I-” she has no reply, of course, nothing she could properly say (she can barely say anything, in this state).

“Are you all right? Have I overstepped the mark?”

“No.”

“I’ve offended you.”

“No.”

“I’ve embarrassed you.”

Anne’s rubbing her forehead now, no longer looking at her. Ann finds she quite wants her gaze to return, but barely has her words.

“No, no, no.”

“I have. Would you like me to go?”

“No.”

“Well, then...have I misread it?”

How could she explain it? How her stomach flutters at the sight of her, how fingertips on her made her feel not just warm but _aflame_?

“No, I-I do have...very warm and tender feelings for you. I don’t know, I, it’s...oh, lord.”

She has never cursed her lack of eloquence more than now, the words crowded and lost in her throat, unable to tell her.

“I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ll be in a thousand miseries between now and then thinking that I’ve overstepped the mark, or that I’ve horrified you, or that you despise me.”

“I could never despise you, Anne, please don’t ever imagine that, not for a second,” she says, and her voice is stronger now, for while she cannot articulate the exact nature of her feelings, she knows that contempt is nowhere in the mix.

The moment is gone, then, or so she thinks, a mess of apologies, but then Anne takes her hand, looks at her once more.

“You don’t need to be frightened,” she says, and then she is gone and Anne is left at the window, stomach and heart aching.

 

***

 

Her dreams are fitful, that night, she dreams of Anne and her close proximity, of her hands, and she wakes flushed with the sheets knotted around her, an aching between her legs.

 

***

 

She sees Anne once more before her trip, right before she is set to leave. Anne fastens the pin to her chest, and again the closeness between them steals her breath.

_Have you never wanted to?_

It would be easy, she thinks, to close this distance, the weight of the pin a new heaviness on her breast as she looks up at Anne. _She’s beautiful_ , Ann thinks as Anne speaks of feeling safe, and yes, she is safe, she’s safe with Anne, even if in this moment her tender feelings feel warm enough to burn her alive.

“I’ll miss you,” she tells her instead, and she does not look away.

“I’ll miss you,” Anne echoes, but she’s retreating, the distance between them widening, and all too soon it’s time to go.

 

***

 

 _Think of me_ , Anne had said before departing, and it’s all Ann does, on the trip to the Lake District, thinking of the look in her eyes, the part of her lips, the tight coils of hair Ann longs to slip her finger into.

She wants to kiss Anne, she decides, not long after they arrive. She’s most certain of it now. Just to see what it’s like. She’s not _a little bit in love with her_.

Probably not, anyways.

 

***

 

Maybe she’s not a little bit in love with her, but the sunlight on Anne’s face is a gorgeous thing, as they stroll in the woods before coming to the tidy little house.

They’re alone in the home, Anne crouched before the fire (though it’s quite warm enough, Ann certainly feels warm, flushed). But there is no better moment than now. She swallows before speaking.

“That day...we were in my sitting room, and you said, um, you implied that you…”

She’s stumbling again, made stupid under Anne’s gaze, but she soldiers forward.

“Wanted to kiss me. And then you were embarrassed, but you shouldn’t have been. Because it doesn’t frighten me.”

It’s a lie - she _is_ frightened, just a bit, but the fright is drowned by other, more insistent things.

“Really?”

Anne takes her hands, kneels in front of her, and Ann steels herself, drawing in a single, shaking breath, eyes closed, waiting for the feel of Anne’s lips on hers. But instead, Anne presses her lips to Ann’s jaw, tender, fluttery kisses that are unbearable in their lightness.

She moves to Ann’s hand, then, kisses the back of it, the palm, the wrist.

At this point Ann is quivering. For all her faults, she’s never thought herself the kind of woman who _quivers_ , yet here she is, vibrating like a bowstring.

And when Anne kisses her, fingertips on her jaw, it’s like a song.

It’s light at first, overwhelmingly tender, and Ann is spinning, or maybe the room is spinning, and it’s almost hard to kiss her again for the smile that breaks over her face. She’s not known such rightness in a long time, maybe ever, heart pounding and skin flushing, her hands moving over Anne, feeling the rich fabric of her top, the sleekness of her hair.

(Her finger fits perfectly in the ringlets at her temple, Ann discovers. Just as her lips fit perfectly against Anne’s.)

 

***

 

Ann had gone 29 years not particularly thinking about kissing, but now, it’s all she can think about. When Anne leaves that afternoon (after accepting her dinner invitation, after another round of kissing, Ann’s back pressed to the door), Ann retires to her room, mind whirling, counting the hours or minutes until she can kiss her again.

(Just a little bit in love.)

 

***

 

In the candlelight, after supper, Anne asks her if she might want to be companions. Ann has a better understanding of the term than she did a month ago, and part of her thrills at the question, a noise escaping her. She does not want to deny Anne anything, not with her hand clasped on her thigh, she wants to give her the world.

She cannot give her this, though - not quite, not yet.

Anne is disappointed at her stuttered response, she can tell, so she does her best to salvage it.

“Rather than give you a yes now, could we wait six months?”

“Six months?”

“Well it is, is it not, the same as a proposal, and would it not be prudent in any - in all circumstances - for both parties to fully consider everything that --”

Anne’s smile lights the room, broad and breaking across her striking face, and Ann feels relief wash over her, giddy.

“I can wait that long, as long as I have reason to hope.”

Anne’s hand is at her cheek, stroking, and Ann is again helpless beneath it.

“I think you have every reason to hope.”

Anne leans forward, kissing her, and Ann leans back, rapt, and she wants her, or thinks she does, but it’s still too much when Anne’s hand creeps higher, to her aching sex, and though a part of her wants it - very much - she pulls back. Anne stops, concerned, and oh, she’s done it now, she’s ruined things, unable to give this woman what she wants, she’s a fool, a damned fool.  

Anne leaves with John and Ann cries, after, sure she’s ruined this.

 

***

 

She’s full on distraught, after, and when Anne finds her the next day she’s a weepy, red-faced mess, sitting on the floor.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she admits, voice wrecked from her sobs, but Anne crouches before her, wiping the tears from her face as Ann’s insecurities spill out.

“I was so terrified I might never see you again,” she sobs.

“Why?”

“Because of last night. Because I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”

“These things take time,” Anne says, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, the corners of her eyes - her tears - and then their lips meet and Ann’s world rightens again, just a little bit.

They keep kissing, and Anne guides her to the couch, lays her back. The kisses deepen, hungrier, and the ache between Ann’s thighs returns, and this time when Anne’s hand creeps higher she does not stop it, instead lets her thighs slip apart to welcome her.

Anne’s fingertips tease against the inside of her thigh, gentle, barely brushing against her, and Ann soon finds herself squirming, trying to get closer to that dexterous hand.

“Please,” she murmurs, and Anne obliges this, fingers touching her cleft, the press of it eliciting another noise from her, one she isn’t quite sure she’s ever made before.

She’s breathing heavier now, and when Anne slips a finger inside her she gasps, not from any kind of pain but from the want, she pulls her into another kiss, deeper, hungrier, hips thrusting back against her.

“I love you,” she breaths, and it’s too soon, maybe, to tell her such things, but she cannot stop it, she’s lost to this, lost to Anne.

There is fire in her stomach, in her very veins, and she wants to cry out, but then the door opens and they’ve both jumped up before she can register what’s happened.

 

***

 

She should be scared at the near-miss, but after, all she can do is laugh.

“Should we go upstairs?” she asks, and when Anne agrees, she runs to take them there.

Anne is quick to lay her out on the bed, a position she is all too ready to take - their interruption had not quelled the fire inside her, she senses only Anne might be able to do that - and she kisses her again, sunlight streaming through the windows.

Anne’s hand slips beneath her skirt again, and soon has two fingers inside her, the fingers curved in a way that’s nearly too perfect, her thumb brushing against her in such a way that Ann cannot help the noises she makes.

She feels it building, a tightening inside her that spreads through her body, and then waves of pleasure that overcome her enough that she has to muffle her cries in Anne’s shoulder. When it passes, her body feels loose-limbed and she laughs again, a different kind of uncontrolled, and Anne laughs, too, moving to lay beside her, and Ann takes her hand, stroking the back of it.

“Are you all right?” Anne asks, and Ann looks at her.

“I am beyond all right,” she says, “I am wonderful, superb, delighted.”

Anne’s face breaks into that same glorious smile, and Ann wonders at the lengths she’d go to in order to keep such a smile on the woman’s face. She pulls Anne’s hand in closer, rests it on her chest

“Might we do that again soon?” she asks, flushed, thumb stroking the back of Anne’s hand. Anne’s grin remains, more wolfish now, as she rolls over, lips to Ann’s neck, her jaw, her ear, where she whispers, “my darling, there’s nothing I’d love more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments give me life.
> 
> catch me screaming about this show on tumblr @[thinksideways](https://thinksideways.tumblr.com/)


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